An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator conducts a touch and go landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77). US Navy Photo

Less than a week after its historic launch of the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), the Navy’s X-47B demonstration aircraft preformed a so-called “touch and go,” landing off the carrier on Friday, Navy officials told USNI News.

The 44,567 pound X-47B hit Bush’s deck and then powered off the end of the carrier. The operation at sea is one step closer for the ultimate goal of the Unmanned Combat Air System Aircraft Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) — landing on a moving carrier.

“Today, we have demonstrated this with the X-47B, and we will continue to demonstrate, consistent, reliable, repeatable touch-down locations on a moving carrier flight deck,” Capt. Jaime Engdahl, program manager for Unmanned Combat Air Systems program office, said in a statement “This precision relative navigation technology is key to ensuring future unmanned systems can operate off our aircraft carriers.”

The landing could come as soon as July or August, Don Blottenberger UCAS-D deputy program manager told USNI News on May, 14 underway on Bush. This month, the X-47B successfully landed at a Navy test facility at Patuxent River, Md. on a runway that simulates a carrier landing.

The X-47B is the first fixed-wing-autonomous carrier vehicle in the Navy’s history and serves as a technology demonstrator to show the software and hardware on the aircraft can successfully land the airplane.

The UCAS-D program uses a new Northrop Grumman developed Precision Global Positioning System (PGPS) scheme to allow the X-47B to know where the aircraft is relative to the ship. The PGPS system is a significant upgrade to the current radar based Automatic Carrier Landing System.

The X-47B is the first step in a new breed of carrier aircraft. By 2020 the Navy wants to field the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (UCLASS). UCLASS plans to provide longer loiter times for surveillance missions and the ability to launch weapons.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Kaloust, of Massapequa, N.Y. died when the Humvee he was riding in overturned during a training accident at Ft. Knox, Ky. US Navy Photo

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Kaloust, of Massapequa, N.Y. died when the Humvee he was riding in overturned during a training accident at the Kentucky base. Seven other sailors, including five SEALs suffered minor injuries from the collision, according to a report from the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.

The 23 year-old joined the Navy in 2011 after earning a degree from Binghamton University in 2010. He was also a collegiate wrestler.

“He was an all-star scholastic athlete at Massapequa High on Long Island and won 10 career matches as a walk-on at Binghamton,” according to a release from the university.

“He was not the most talented when it came to wrestling, but you could put him in any room with any team in the country, and he would hang in there,” former coach Pat Popolizio told The Virginian Pilot.
“You could not mentally or physically break this kid.”

SEALs train at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in 2012. US Navy Photo

A SEAL from the Naval Special Warfare Group Two at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story was killed Wednesday in a training accident at Army installation Ft. Knox, according to several press reports. Five other sailors were injured in the accident.

The sailors were part of a convoy riding in a Humvee when the accident occured, Navy officals told The Virginian Pilot.

“The U.S. Navy has used the 170-square-mile Fort Knox as a training ground since World War II. The Army post is about 50 miles southwest of Louisville and is home to about 14,000 military personnel, including active duty members and reserves,” reported The Associated Press.

The accident is under investigation and the more details could be released later Friday.

Former under secretary of the Navy Bob Work. US Navy Photo

Bob Work — the chief executive officer of Center for a New American Security and former under secretary of the Navy— gave Pentagon leaders advice on how the services should innovate in a time of austerity in Thursday remarks at the EAST: Joint Warfighting 2013 symposium in Virginia Beach, Va.

Work said the greatest threat to U.S. security would be not taking advantage of the current drawdown in resources to create a force structure that makes sense for security threats. The second greatest threat was the current climate of political indecision in Washington.

The only bipartisan agreement in Washington was between conservative budget hawks and liberals interested in increased social spending — both groups want defense budget cuts.

Work was convinced the bottom in Pentagon funding cuts had not been reached and advised the military, “to quit whining about sequestration.”

He advised military funding going forward should emphasize naval and projection forces. He said an ideal Pentagon budget in the era of austerity should remain consistent for naval, aerospace and special operations forces; for the U.S. to take some risk with reducing ground forces and increase funding for cyber operations.

Along with technical innovation, U.S. forces should begin experimenting with new unit structures to maximize the utility of military assets. Work used the example of French and English navies in the late 1800s. The French were the first navy to employ a steam powered battleship in 1850, the first mechanical submarine in 1863 along with other naval innovations. Despite the French’s technical innovations, the British Royal Navy was the better force because it perfected using the available technology and experimented with how its units were composed.

With 12 years of fighting, the U.S. has been unable to experiment with its structures due to war fighting commitments. With two thirds of forces forward and one third in a surge posture, the military’s deployment schedule doesn’t allow for organizational experimentation.

Work also said the U.S. is unlikely to go to war with China, though they remain, ” tough competitor.”
The United States Naval Institute and AFCEA co-sponsored the symposium.

GAO’s analysis of resources devoted to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) geographic combatant commands shows that authorized military and civilian positions and mission and headquarters-support costs have grown considerably over the last decade due to the addition of two new commands and increases in authorized positions at theater special operations commands. Data provided by the commands shows that authorized military and civilian positions increased by about 50 percent from fiscal years 2001 through 2012, to about 10,100 authorized positions. In addition, mission and headquarters support-costs at the combatant commands more than doubled from fiscal years 2007 through 2012, to about $1.1 billion.

USS Lake Erie fires a SM-3 interceptor in February. MDA Photo

The Missile Defense Agency and the U.S. Navy intercepted a simulated ballistic missile in the third successful test of the Navy’s next generation Aegis ballistic missile defense system, MDA officials told USNI News on Thursday.

The target missile – fired from a test range in Hawaii at 5:25 p.m. local time on Wednesday – was detected by the SPY-1 radar aboard USS Lake Erie (CG-70). The ship launched a SM-3 Block IB equipped with a BMD kill vehicle that successfully destroyed the simulated threat missile in low Earth orbit.

Lake Erie’s Aegis BMD 4.0 is the latest set of software upgrades that allow the SPY-1 radar to track and send telemetry data of a target missile to the SM-3 Block IB interceptor.

“This test exercised the latest version of the second-generation Aegis BMD Weapon System and Standard Missile, providing capability for engagement of longer-range and more sophisticated ballistic missiles,” read a statement from the MDA.
Aegis BMD – managed jointly by the Navy and MDA – is rapidly becoming a one of the U.S. Navy’s highest profile mission. Aegis was originally designed as an anti-air system for fleet protection from air threats. Since its 1980s introduction into the U.S. Navy, the system has been modified with additional processing power, improved software and new missiles evolved the system to target and destroy enemy missiles.

Aegis BMD system – on 26 U.S. Navy ships as of November – is a keystone of the Obama administration’s European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) that put Aegis equipped U.S. Navy destroyers and cruisers in the Mediterranean and plan for land-based BMD batteries in Eastern Europe.

The BMD mission is also the key focus of the Navy’s next series of Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

Rear Adm. Ted Branch, commander of Naval Air Force, Atlantic, speaks to Sailors aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in 2012. US Navy Photo

A previous version of this story cited an incorrect figure for the number of lost aircrew in the Navy and Marine Corps from 1949 to 1988. That actual number of was not 5,000, but 8,500. USNI News regrets the error. 

It will take less time for China to learn how to effectively operate aircraft carriers than it took the U.S., the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic air arm, Rear Adm. Ted Branch said Wednesday.

“They will learn faster than we did and they will leverage our lessons,” Branch said during a panel at the at the EAST: Joint Warfighting 2013 symposium in Virginia Beach, Va.

The U.S. Navy’s education in carrier aviation came at a high price.  From 1949 to 1988, “the Navy and Marine Corps lost almost twelve thousand airplanes of all types
(helicopters, trainers, and patrol planes, in addition to jets) and over 8,500 aircrew,” according a section of the book  “One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Airpower” by Robert C. Rubel.

The Chinese, according to Branch, will not have to pay nearly as dear a cost.
“They probably watched ‘Top Gun,’ he said.
“They see how it works.”

In November the People’s Liberation Army Navy flew and landed its first J-15s from their carrier Liaoning, a converted Russian ship the PLAN put into active service in late 2011.

But the PLAN will unlikely be proficient in carrier operations for several more years.
“They have the advantage of starting with more modern technology but it’s still a tough nut to crack to learn how to do this business,” Branch said.
“They still have a lot of learning to do before they have a viable capability.”

The Chinese have started training pilots with the help of the Brazilian Navy.

The flagship of the Brazilian fleet is a 1960s era former French carrier a third the size of a U.S. Nimitz-class carrier.

For now, the Chinese still have a very limited capability that only demonstrates the very basics of naval aviation.

“Liaoning currently is more of a political statement than a naval threat, posing little operational danger to the United States, its allies in East Asia, or even to smaller regional nations,” wrote Bernard D. Cole, a retired U.S. Navy officer and instructor at National Defense University, in USNI News in May.

Gen. Robert Cone, TRADOC commander in 2011. US Army Photo

The hard learned lesson of how important the human dimension and human domain is in warfare could be lost when budgets gets tight, the Army’s top training officer told attendees at the EAST: Joint Warfighting 2013 symposium in Virginia Beach, Va. on Wednesday.

“We need to prepare the land force [Army, Special Operating Force and Marine Corps] for a sophisticated understanding of the human dimension and human domain,” and invest in it, Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, said.

When the coalition entered Iraq in 2003 it did not understand the Iraqi will that turned a battlefield defeat into a persistent insurgency that continued for years.

Cone said few in the coalition spoke the language, understood the culture or knew about tribal loyalties. Instead, the focus was on “target lists and order of battle” to defeat the Iraqis.

“We have to think about [all those areas] as a defeat mechanism,” Cone said.
To better understand the dynamics of different parts of the globe, the Army is realigning its units with different regions.

For example, I Corps is now aligned with Pacific Command and a brigade from the 1st Infantry Division is sending a brigade to Africa to conduct missions that combatant commander considers essential.
“We’re putting our sergeants and junior officers on the ground,” Cone said.

At the same time, his Asymmetric Warfare Group is looking across the globe to identify potential areas of conflict and looking at ways to head them off through working with other governments in a number of areas.

“The future environment will be highly complex as the velocity of human interaction is accelerating” as it did with social media during the Arab Spring.” The future will be filled with “ambiguity and illusion” that require better-trained and educated service members.

For the Army that also means closing the education gap in its field grade and noncommissioned officer ranks created by 12 years of war.

Cone said that 5,000 majors and 35,000 NCOs were promoted without attending the usual courses required for higher rank.

Cone challenged industry to look to smaller, handheld devices” rather than large, cumbersome simulators.
“How do you make training real?”

rank Kendall, the under secretary of defense, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics in 2012.

The Pentagon’s top acquisition official apologized he “didn’t have better news” in discussing the Department of Defense’s fiscal outlook during his keynote address on Tuesday at the EAST: Joint Warfighting 2013 symposium in Virginia Beach, Va.

Frank Kendall, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics warned the Department of Defense might have to again operate under a Continuing Resolution rather than a budget for Fiscal Year 2014.

“It’s starting to make me nervous,” he said.

There are three proposals before Congress covering the budget. The House bill essentially calls for no cuts beyond those already agreed to, the administration’s calling for $150 billion in additional cuts over 10 years and the Senate’s calling for $250 billion over the same time frame. All would be preferable to sequestration, he said.

Describing sequestration as a “death of a thousand cuts,” he said it was “set up not to happen,” but it did on March 1 and right now the Pentagon is operating in, “a damage limitation mode.”

In the future, Kendall expected “we’re going to have pressure to keep force structure” and the size of the armed forces drives everything else. But, “it’s not fair to our people to get the C-17 and be handed a pink slip.”

The cuts are coming from operations and maintenance accounts and research and development. What is so perplexing to defense planners, Kendall said, is the cuts are immediate under sequestration. This creates a situation of “which least bad choice to make” since some accounts, such as personnel, are off-limits. The Pentagon announced that there will be 11 days of furlough for most of its civilian workforce this year.

Kendall said that he is looking for “some hedging investments” to keep the industrial base viable and allows technology to move forward and reduces production lead-time when and if the program moves forward. He also saw advantages in prototyping in certain areas such as air dominance.

“What do we do after F-35?” he asked.
“This world does not stand still. We do have near peer competitors who are investing wisely.”
On the workforce, he said, “Keeping morale up is going to be tough.” Steps that the Pentagon are taking in that regard are acknowledging publicly the civilian workforces contributions, recognizing superior performers and “trying to protect our people… as best we can.”

The U.S. Navy ushered in a new era in aviation with Tuesday’s launch of the first autonomous jet from an aircraft carrier.

The angular X-47B flew from deck of USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) launched from the same steam catapult that’s pushed manned fighters into the sky for decades — but without a cockpit or a pilot. 

“Today we saw a small, but significant pixel in the future picture of our Navy as we begin integration of unmanned systems into arguably the most complex warfighting environment that exists today: the flight deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,” said Vice Adm. David Buss, commander, Naval Air Forces, the Navy’s “Air Boss”.

The experimental jet is part of the Navy’s experimental Unmanned Combat Air System Aircraft Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D). The program set out to prove that an autonomous aircraft could operate from the decks of the service’s aircraft carriers.

“This is a first,” said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, Navy UCAS program manager told reporters on a May 8 conference call.
“It’s a historic moment as we introduce the X-47B into the harsh environment of a carrier at sea.”

The X-47B is a generational leap forward in technology and autonomy from the ubiquitous Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles flying in Afghanistan.

Predator and Reaper UAVs rely on an operator to directly control the aircraft at all times. The flight trained pilots input course changes at a control station that more closely resembles the cockpit of an aircraft.

The Navy and contractor Northrop Grumman have created a control system that minimizes the oversight of the operator and instead relies more on internal software onboard the aircraft to fly the plane.

“It is an autonomous vehicle,” Engdahl said.
“It will be under direct control by the mission operator but there’s no stick or throttle or break pedal inside the mission operator station… You have a man in the loop who can direct the airplane and that can tell it what to do but the execution is on the air vehicle.”

The same idea of autonomy extends to the takeoff and eventual carrier landing of the X-47B.

Earlier in May, the X-47B successfully landed at a Navy test facility at Patuxent River, Md. on a runway that simulates a carrier landing.

Using its onboard autonomous systems, the X-47B was able to catch its tail hook on a wire that slowed the aircraft to a stop in a matter of seconds.

“Landing an unmanned aircraft on an aircraft carrier will be the greatest singular accomplishment for the UCAS demonstration and will serve as the culmination of over a decade of Navy unmanned carrier integration work”, Engdahl sad in a May 6 statement from Naval Air Systems Command.

The landing X-47B on a carrier is last most difficult step and could come as early as the end of the month.

If UCAS-D is a success, it will mark the next step in creating a new breed of unmanned carrier aircraft that can operate without the limitations of manned fighters and hold the promise of doubling the deadly range of an aircraft carrier.

By 2020 the Navy wants to field the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (UCLASS). UCLASS plans to provide longer loiter times for surveillance missions and the ability to launch weapons.

U.S. made parts in this Virginia-class submarine could be replaced by foreign components.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert has long warned of a decline in U.S. companies that provide critical components to the nation’s most technologically sophisticated hardware: nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers.

“I worry about the industrial base,” Greenert said at the Credit Suisse/McAllese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C., on March 12. “Ninety percent of the industry that builds our nuclear components is single source. . . . It’s the second or third tier. It’s ‘Bob’s Nuclear Valve Shop.’”

Greenert should be concerned.  The loss of even few sole-source suppliers could mean costly delays and considerable unanticipated expense, just as the Navy’s program to replace the aging Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines ramps up.

The businesses must deal with government’s irregular demand for their products. A modern nuclear submarine averages more than 1 million individual parts and components—most without commercial application.  Many companies supporting submarine production have only one customer.

As those companies close, the U.S. Navy may be forced to deal with foreign suppliers for critical items and materials.

The issue becomes one of national security. If sourced only from abroad, there are no guarantees that Navy needs will be met in times of a crisis. U.S. ability to produce defense products will become dependent on global trade conditions, which may not always favor the United States, especially when other buyers, such as China, are willing to pay more and drive up costs.

The most illustrative example of things to come may be gleaned from a third tier, Connecticut-based, copper-nickel (Cu-Ni) tubing supplier Ansonia Specialty Metals, LLC.

The longtime provider of Cu-Ni naval tubing is the only U.S. company that provides military/marine-grade tubing products measuring of 4.5 inches or larger in diameter.  With literally hundreds of miles of Ansonia’s Cu-Ni tubing in use on board U.S. submarines, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and amphibious warships, the Navy has come to rely on the high-tech manufacturing processes the firm has developed over the years.

With near-zero commercial applications for large diameter Cu-Ni tubing, Ansonia is totally dependent on the Navy. Reduced shipbuilding, combined with intense foreign competition, has slowly been driving Ansonia to the brink. Over the past few years, it has been forced to let go of nearly half its employees, from 70 now down to 35.

“We cannot go on another month,” John Barto, Ansonia vice president and general manager, said in an interview on 8 May. “Essentially, I am now out of the business, our orders are so small—and if we don’t get substantial orders soon we are going to have to exit this business sector altogether.“

General Dynamics Electric Boat has been purchasing Cu-Ni tubing from KME, an Italian-German corporation, Barto said. According to Barto, KME charges Electric Boat far less than it does customers in Europe—radically lowering prices—with the intention of putting Ansonia out of business.

“We are also under attack by a supplier in Mexico, Nacobre. It employs predatory pricing, essentially dumpingk to push us out of our own market,” Barto said. If Ansonia were put out of the defense business, non-U.S. companies then could set any price structure they wished, he said, leaving the Navy with no U.S. alternative.

“Our warfighters cannot have substandard parts and components. Our Cu-Ni tubing is used for fire suppression and nuclear cooling lines, to mention just a few,” Barto said.

The hazards of relying on foreign nations for defense material are detailed in a May 8report. Remaking American Security: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & National Security Risks Across The Defense Industrial Base, released by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, the document describes the risk to national security posed by supply-chain disruptions.

“The loss of Cu-Ni tubing production capability and a resulting supply shortage would have a significant impact and would reduce the ability to build and repair ships and submarines and damage U.S. Navy readiness. Ships and submarines could not be built or repaired without using a less-acceptable substitute. If the United States Cu-Ni tubing were unavailable during a conflict, the U.S. Navy’s readiness would be negatively impacted. . . . If Ansonia were unable to remain in business and KME stopped supplying Cu-Ni tubing, the U.S. Navy would be highly vulnerable to a supply disruption.”

Barto’s company is not waiting for the Navy to toss out a life preserver and come to the rescue.

“Fortunately . . . we have identified a new product in the oil and gas industry. Once this takes off we may exit the government market. Right now it is not economical to try to keep them as a customer; although I would like to remain a sole-source provider, I just can’t keep banging my head against the wall,” he said.

Should the Navy reduce submarine construction to one per year, Connecticut-based supplier Prime Technology will be unable to remain in operation.

“We supply gauges and meters for all U.S. Navy submarines.  We have over 70 of our product components on a submarine right now and we are barely hanging on . . . a single submarine is not a lot of business for us, we have been able to survive on two boats per year, but if they take one out we’re in trouble,” Keith MacDowall, Prime Technology vice president of sales and marketing, said in a 19 April interview.

“Our only substantial client is Electric Boat. We feel anything they get hit with. The question is what can they do if there are more cuts. . . . If that were to happen we won’t be able to respond as we can now to urgent requests,” MacDowell said.
“We have a very small commercial client base but require a cleared production facility and that means high overhead. Most of our products just don’t have commercial application. . . . Sales dropped into the seven-figure range last year. We waited as long as we could for things to get better, but had to let go several staff. Now, we have to cut back another several thousand a month in payroll. Any further cuts will be our core staff, engineers.”

Another company, Ward Leonard , supplier of naval motors and control stations, “made the decision to diversify a few years ago when submarine production was reduced. . . . The business was approximately 90 percent DOD; we moved into the oil and gas industry and now the split is closer to 50-50,” said Bill Berger, Ward Leonard development executive, on 17 April.

Maintaining an intact supply chain has been a major challenge for Ward Leonard.

“Our staff continuously looks for alternate suppliers; when we have to switch, suppliers’ prices usually go up,” Berger said.

His company has seen about 10 percent of its small business supply base, “either go out of business because of spending slowdowns or they moved into commercial areas.”

Like Greenert, Berger is concerned, “about the smaller shops of less than five employees; these typically don’t have the cash reserves to hold on in tough times. . . . It is the uncertainty—more than actual effects of the sequestration—that I think is causing the most harm right now. . . . I can operate in an environment where I know what to expect. What is so damaging is when everything is pushed off, and no one knows when production is going to return to normal. A lot of small companies cannot survive.”

Ansonia’s Barto believes that the leadership in the military and Congress aren’t doing enough. “Our government knows about the problem, but no one is working to do anything about it,” he said.

Army Gen. James D. Thurman, commander, United Nations Command, Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces command, and United States Forces Korea onboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on May, 11 2013. US Navy Photo

Aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) has left Busan, Korea for joint exercises between the U.S. and the Republic of Korea, according to a Monday statement from U.S. 7th Fleet.

“The operations are taking place beyond the territorial seas of any coastal nations and are intended to reinforce regional security and stability, enhance interoperability with our allies, and increase operational proficiency and readiness,” read the statement.

Nimitz arrived at Busan on Saturday for a port call ahead of the two-day exercise. The arrival of the carrier to the region sparked protest from North Korean officials.

Pyongyang issued a statement over the weekend calling Nimitz’ presence in the region, “an open threat and blackmail against the DPRK (North Korea), and a grave military provocation to unleash a nuclear war against it at any cost on the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea issued similar statements when the Japan-based carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) was in the region, June 2012.

Nimitz will be accompanied by, “the embarked Commander Carrier Strike Group 11 and carrier Air Wing 11; the guided-missile cruisers USS Princeton (CG-59) and USS Chosin (CG-65); and guided missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG-88), according to 7th Fleet.

The arrival of Nimitz to Busan caused a minor stir when North Korean media announced the ship’s intended arrival to the port ahead of official confirmation from the Navy.

“An investigation found that posts on a camera club’s website about the impending arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier, combined with a previous post on a U.S. Navy site announced the Nimitz’ arrival in the 7th Fleet’s jurisdiction,” was the likely casue of the North Korean release according to a report from Stars and Stripes.

View USS Nimitz in a larger map

Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Tennessee (SSBN-734). US Navy Photo

The Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan warns Congress unless the Pentagon can find more money to complete the Navy’s planned 12 new Ohio-class Replacement ballistic missile submarines the service will be unable to meet its future obligations.

The report — issued to Congress May 10 — concludes the service would be “dramatically changed,” if the service is unable to sustain the $19.2 billion-a-year shipbuilding budget from the construction of the almost $6 billion per boat Ohio replacement program. The Navy is currently attempting to drop the cost of the boats to $4.9 billion.

The planned class of 12 ships plans to begin construction in 2021 and will continue until 2035. The construction of the boomers coincides with the retirement of legacy ships from the 1980s.

“The confluence of these events prevents the Navy from being able to shift resources within the shipbuilding account to accommodate the cost of the Ohio Replacement,” read the report.

The shipbuilding plan echoes a recent push from Navy leaders to have the new boomers be placed in a special National Capital Ships Account to fund the boomers outside of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget.

Otherwise, “we will not be able to hit the numbers” to build other ships,” said Sean Stackley during a May 8 Senate Armed Services Committee Seapower Subcommittee.

That number now stands at a battle force of 306 ships, revealed by the Navy last year.

The force will place an emphasis on large surface combatants capable of ballistic missile defense and smaller surface combatants like the Littoral Combat Ship.

At least on member of Congress is upset with the shipbuilding plan.

“At current funding levels, it remains an exercise in wishful thinking,” said Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee in a May, 10 statement provided to USNI News.

“The funding shortfalls in the shipbuilding account will leave the Fleet with capability gaps in key areas over the coming years. This document continues the woefully inadequate resourcing of our fleet that has already led the Navy’s size to fall to near-historic lows. If the decade ahead is one that will be dominated by seapower, this isn’t the plan to get there.”

USAF Gen Philip Breedlove assumed command of EUCOM from retiring Adm James Stavridis on May, 10.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove has officially taken the helm as Commander U.S. forces in Europe; as Commander, European Command; and as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in a Friday ceremony in Stuttgart, Germany.

Breedlove was previously commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa. He is a 1977 graduate of Georgia Tech, a command pilot with 3,500 hours primarily in F-16s and was previously Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force.

Breedlove replaces Navy Adm. James Stavridis who will retire to become Dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Somerset (LPD 25) is launched from the Huntington Ingalls Industries Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana on April, 14 2012. US Navy Photo

The Navy will commission the third San Antonio-class (LPD-17) amphibious warship — Somerset (LPD-25) — named after a Sept. 11, 2001 attack site in Philadelphia, Pa., according to a Thursday releases from Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Somerset County in Pennsylvania was where the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11. Passengers and crew attempted to seize control of the plane from terrorists and the plane ultimately crashed before reaching its target.

“The ship is named in honor of the courageous passengers whose actions prevented the 9-11 hijackers from killing many more Americans. Pennsylvanians will be privileged to have the ship begin her service to the country in the Port of Philadelphia,” read a statement from Toomey’s office.

“We have taken great pride in our role to ensure that this sacrifice is never forgotten. I’m pleased that our state will have the honor of having this ship begin its service in the Port of Philadelphia,” read a statement from Casey’s office.

The Navy has named two other ships for Sept. 11 attack sites. USS New York (LPD-21) for the attack on the World Trade Center and USS Arlington (LPD-24) for the attack on the Pentagon.

Lt. Col. Andrew J. McNulty speaks to 1st Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment service members during a memorial ceremony March 21, 2013. McNulty was relieved of command on Wednesday. US Marine Corps Photo

Three Marine officers were relieved of command Wednesday in the aftermath of a March mortar accident that killed seven Camp Lejeune, N.C. Marines, 2nd Marine Division officials told USNI News.

Lt. Col. Andrew McNulty, commander of 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, the battalion’s Alpha Company commander Capt. Kelby Breivogel and the battalion’s infantry weapons officer Chief Warrant Officer 3 Douglas Derring were relieved of their duties with the 9th Marines, 1st Lt. Peter Koerner with 2nd Marines told USNI News on Thursday and first reported by Marine Corps Times.

The Marines still remain on active duty and are not charged with any crime under military law, Koerner said. Brig. Gen. James Lukeman had “lost confidence,” in McNulty’s ability to lead the battalion. Koerner said the command doesn’t anticipate future charges related to the March, 18 accident.

Early results from the investigation have placed the blame on a malfunction of a 60 mm mortar. Some of the preliminary findings from the investigation were evaluated in the decision to relieve the Marine officers.

The seven Marines killed in the accident had recently completed a winter warfare exercise at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, Bridgeport, Calif. and moved to Hawthorne for live fire training. Seven other Marines and a sailor were injured in the blast.

The investigation into the accident is in its final stages, Koerner said.

An undated artist’s rendering of the Ohio Replacement. Naval Sea Systems Command

The Navy’s top acquisition official told the Senate Armed Services Committee Seapower Subcommittee that talks with the Defense Department “have not progressed” in putting the Ohio-class ballistic-missile replacement program into a special National Capital Ships Account.

Testifying on 8 May, Sean Stackley said the long-range impact of keeping the 12 Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines in the Navy’s shipbuilding account means “we will not be able to hit the numbers” to build other ships.

Even though costs have been driven down—from $7 billion per vessel to $4.9 billion—he said that effort “does not buy ship affordability.” The Navy’s shipbuilding plans five years from now call for spending $20 billion for 12 to 15 years to put the replacement ballistic missile submarines into the fleet. The Navy’s shipbuilding request for Fiscal Year 2014 is slightly more than $10 billion.

There “needs to be more heated” discussions in the Congress, the Defense Department and the Navy over how to pay for the Ohio-class replacements and build the other ships needed to meet the 306-ship presence requirement, he said.

On next generation Gerald Ford (CVN-78), Stackley said steps taken by Huntington Ingalls at Newport News, vendors, and the Navy have “stayed cost, but not reversed it.” The original projected cost of the carrier was $10.5 billion, but is now put at $12.8 billion. Newport News is the only shipyard building nuclear-powered carriers.

Calling the cost growth unacceptable, Stackley explained, “Far too much risk was carried into the design” that created matériel ordering and delivery delays. At the same time, “far too much work is being done at the end of the cycle” in dry dock and the water rather than in Newport News’ shops.

“CVN-79 will start with a clear design,” learned from building Ford. Because carriers are unique with their five- to seven-year construction cycle, there is “an extended learning curve” for shipyard workers; but now the yard and vendors understand what is expected of them.

“The early LPDs got away from us,” Vice Adm. Kevin McCoy, Naval Sea Systems Command commander, told the panel, but the San Antonio-class amphibs “are performing well in service.” He added there have been zero in-service start cards on the propulsion system in the San Antonio-class.

What helped bring that program’s costs under control and improve quality workmanship was adding trained staff to the supervisor of shipbuilding’s office. McCoy said the Navy realized in 2006–2007 that cuts in that staff were too deep and has increased personnel to about 1,200 now. That allows the Navy to make more inspections of ships under construction within the shipyard and without, and “spotting negative trends” that can be corrected before delivery, he said.

If sequestration continues into Fiscal Year 2014 and is authorized to run 10 years, the Navy would expect to take a hit of $52 billion. Stackley said the effect on shipbuilding would be felt in the addition of a tenth DDG-51 to the Flight III plan, adding a second Virginia-class submarine in this request and delaying the first mine-countermeasure and surface-warfare variants of the littoral combat ship into the next fiscal year.

Stackley said he already had “pulled all the margin out of shipbuilding” to cover sequestration cuts for this fiscal year. He added that the Navy wants to exempt shipyard and depot workers from this year’s furloughs “because of the direct impact on readiness,” and is seeking that permission.

If furloughs go through there will be less overtime on NAVSEA’s 57,000 workers’ slipping maintenance schedules for carriers, ballistic-missile and attack submarines in that yard, McCoy said. “Our Navy can’t sail without [its civilian workers].”

Describing what was happening in private yards, Stackley said, sequestration “created a great deal of uncertainty” that trickles down into the differing levels of the vendor base and threatens the savings from multiyear contracts because construction schedules have to be extended.

“We want to hold on to the skilled workforce that we’ve got” and sequestration “is a detractor for folks in industry considering government service,” he said, citing the acquisition workforce as an example.

Vice Adm. Allen Myers, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, warned, “It going to be increasingly difficult [to recruit and retain] the right workers with the right skills if we don’t put certainty back into the process.”

A naval honor guard at the in 2012 on board the Liaoning. Xinhua News Agency Photo

China’s acquisition of its first operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, has generated headlines of late. Those reports have included questions about how many additional carriers Beijing intends acquiring.
Air power is crucial to naval power, and Chinese officers have long expressed interest in acquiring aircraft carriers. Many reports of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) carrier construction were published during the final quarter of the last century; President Jiang Zemin may have given the Navy permission to begin carrier design in the mid-1990s.

Aircraft carrier advocates in the PLAN began taking significant steps in 1985 with acquisition of the ex-Australian carrier, Melbourne. Next came construction of a carrier deck mock-up, complete with catapults and arresting gear, in Guangdong Province a few years later. The mock carrier flight deck presumably was used for some period of time to train would-be carrier pilots from the PLAN or the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), but did not last long.

PLAN interest in acquiring aircraft carriers continued; following purchase of the Melbourne, China acquired three former Soviet carriers: the Kiev, Minsk, and Varyag. Commercial companies intending to convert the ships into casinos supposedly made all three purchases, but that obviously was a subterfuge; Beijing bought Kiev and Minsk to allow naval engineers to study their construction, as was the case with Melbourne.

Minsk and Kiev are decrepit hulks; as two of the Soviet Union’s first carriers they were inactive for several years before being sold to Chinese interests. Varyag has had a different history. Its construction began in a Ukrainian shipyard in 1985 and stopped in 1992, a year after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The ship is equipped with arresting gear and a “ski-jump” bow, the latter to facilitate fixed-wing aircraft operations.

Varyag was incomplete when sold to China by the Ukraine in 2000, apparently lacking engines and much other equipment. The ship arrived in China in 2003, following a two-year delay: Turkey balked at its transit of the Turkish Straits and the Dardanelles, an apparent violation of the Montreux Convention. Then followed a hazardous voyage to China under tow. At one point the ship broke free from its tugs in the Eastern Mediterranean and was almost abandoned.

Varyag then spent nearly a decade being reconstructed in Chinese shipyards before becoming operational in 2012. Renamed Liaoning, the carrier began training pilots in the fall. Two factors may detract from Liaoning’s operational life. First is the very long time from initial construction to commissioning, including many years of sitting idle and rusting; ships under construction that long often have proved to be difficult to maintain. Second was the Soviet plan to install a pressure-fired steam propulsion engineering plant in the ship. That plant, similar to that in the Sovremenny-class cruisers that China has acquired, is trouble-prone and difficult to keep in operational trim.

That said, however, her very long time in reconstruction may mean that China rebuilt Liaoning from the keel up, thus ameliorating previous problems. Furthermore, if Beijing does intend employing the ship solely for training aviators, then it may serve that purpose quite satisfactorily. That means, of course, that China plans to build aircraft carriers.

China has been using the J-15 as its first carrier airplane, but has reportedly been negotiating to procure the more capable Su-33 as its carrier aircraft from Russia. Additional, indigenously built aircraft carriers are almost certainly in the PLAN’s future. While Zhang Guangqin, a senior shipbuilding official, denied in June 2005 the report that China was building an aircraft carrier in Shanghai, in October 2006 a senior officer in the PLA General Armament Department, Lieutenant-General Wang Zhiyuan, stated that “the Chinese army will study how to manufacture aircraft carriers so that we can develop our own. . . . [They] are indispensable if we want to protect our interests in the oceans.”

A similar statement was made six months later by a senior PLAN admiral, and then by China’s defense minister, General Liang Guanglie, who reportedly stated in March 2009 that China intends to build aircraft carriers.
Chinese press reports usually describe a 40,000–50,000-ton ship, perhaps similar to the French-built Charles de Gaulle—including possible nuclear propulsion. Liaoning displaces closer to 70,000 tons, however, and it is likely that China will build at least three carriers of approximately that size; also unanswered is whether the new Chinese flat-tops will utilize catapults, like the de Gaulle, or a ski-jump for launching aircraft.

Three carriers theoretically will allow Beijing to maintain near-continuous operational status for at least one of its flattops. Rather than assign one to each of its three fleets, the PLAN may decide to station them in the same port, perhaps in Qingdao, with the North Sea Fleet. The PLAN is also constructing the ships to fill out an aircraft carrier battle group.

New Fuchi-class replenishment-at-sea (RAS) ships are being constructed, but a newer, larger class of RAS ship should be anticipated. That ship will have to be capable of refueling and rearming the carrier plus at least four escorting warships, ideally more than once before reloading fuel and stores. The escorts are likely to be the new Luyang-class destroyers and Jiangkai-class frigates, several of which have already joined PLAN operating forces. Additionally, if the navy follows the U.S. model, at least one submarine would be assigned to operate in at least loose cooperation with the carrier group. The new Type-095 reportedly under construction is a likely candidate.
Liaoning currently is more of a political statement than a naval threat, posing little operational danger to the United States, its allies in East Asia, or even to smaller regional nations. But those nations are reacting to the pending Chinese carrier fleet, primarily by modernizing or acquiring submarines. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and perhaps Thailand are all strengthening their ability to conduct undersea warfare. For instance, Hanoi’s purchase of six Kilo-class submarines from Russia is undoubtedly in reaction to PLAN modernization. And India is acquiring a nuclear powered submarine fleet, more out of concern for Chinese intrusions into the Indian Ocean than from fear of Pakistan, its more historic enemy.

A future, robust Chinese aircraft carrier force is likely, then, but not assured. The PLAN, like the Indian navy—which plans for three carrier task forces—will no doubt face competition from its army and air force colleagues for defense resources, particularly if the Chinese economy slows. Acquisition of carriers is evidence of Beijing’s maritime thinking in a world in which the Taiwan issue is resolved in China’s favor, with the island coming under the mainland’s effective political control. Seaborne air power does little to enhance the PLAN’s capabilities against Taiwan, even if that regime receives U.S. naval assistance.

Beyond Taiwan, the PLAN faces challenges in the East and South China Seas. The operational ranges involved in an East China Sea scenario do not justify PLAN aircraft carriers; those in the South China Sea do require carrier air power to ensure air cover for PLAN surface forces operating throughout that sea. If Beijing achieves its probable strategic maritime goal of gaining sea control capabilities over the three seas (Yellow, East and South China) by 2049, then next for a PLAN planner would be operations in the mid-Pacific or, more likely, in the Indian Ocean. Either theater requires seaborne air power for effective naval operations.

In sum, the advent of Liaoning, and the likely acquisition of two-to-three additional aircraft carriers, signals Beijing’s seriousness about operating naval forces capable of operating after and beyond a Taiwan scenario, including regular deployments outside the three seas.

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and Adm. Jonathan Greenert estify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Tuesday. US Navy Photo

With the USS Freedom (LCS-1) due to arrive in Singapore this week, the Littoral Combat Ship program’s cost received close scrutiny—as well as some sharp questions about the vessel’s survivability—during a  House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on 7 May.

Despite New Jersey Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s opening statement that the LCS and many others in the shipbuilding plan “to our way of thinking are support ships” rather than “classic combatants” such as large cruisers or submarines, and Virginia Democrat Jim Moran’s comments near the end of the two-and-a-half-hour session that “no other ship requires contractors throughout the deployment,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus defended the LCS as “one of our best performing programs.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said the ship was built to a Level 3 standard of survivability and is testing at that level. That means “it takes a hit and returns to base.” He added, “We don’t send ships out alone” and that would increase its survivability.

Secretary Mabus said while it was true the first ship in the class cost about $440 million—about twice what the Navy originally projected—things have changed. “This is a technical term, he said in describing the program when he took office: “It was a mess.”

“The last ship will cost $349 million.” Mabus added that its modular construction allows technology insertions to be made more easily and at less cost than in other ships.

Mabus, who is heading to Singapore this week, with Greenert to follow, said LCS is “absolutely essential for the Pacific.” Greenert stressed its capabilities in areas such as antisubmarine and electronic warfare—strike and cyber—in allowing the Navy, with partners such as India and Japan, to conduct more sophisticated exercises and build capacity of other navies in the region in protecting critical waterways.

Mabus said the LCS is the “perfect ship to operate” in the Malacca Strait. Among the reasons he is going to Singapore is to discuss how the ships will be used.

The Navy plans to deploy four shallow-draft LCSs  in Singapore by 2016. The idea is to keep the ships there and rotate their crews.

Both the Navy and Marine Corps are looking at what they would have to do if sequestration continues in FIscal Year 2014 and if overseas contingency operations are not adequately funded.

To keep readiness high for Marines deploying to Afghanistan and those in the ready force this year, Commandant Gen. James Amos  said the Corps has done a top-to-bottom prioritizing of its needs.  Among the decisions made in that review was keep 7-ton trucks running (rather than new buys) and recapitalizing between 14,000 and 15,000 Humvees rather than retiring them.

“Our readiness next year will be C-3 and C-4 [the lowest classifications] for greater than 50 percent for those not deploying.”  Amos added, “We will reach a point in the future when B Team will not be ready.” That could mean more end-strength cuts, he said. “It will be a smaller force. . . . I’m making plans for that now.”

Greenert said that two-thirds of the Fleet would be in those two lowest readiness categories next year, raising questions of needing more ship retirements and reducing the fleet to 260 or 265 ships rather than the 290 in the immediate shipbuilding program. He added that the impact in private and government shipyards would be substantial. “It took us a long time to get [the expertise and high operating performance] back” when the industrial base was reduced in the past.

Greenert estimated that if sequester continues into FY 2014, its impact on the Navy will be the removal of $23 billion from its overseas contingency operations accounts.

“We clearly need some OCO sustainment,” Mabus said. “We use OCO for about 20 percent of ship maintenance [and] $3 billion to reset the Marine Corps.” Those are “truly a wartime expenditure.”

The weekend arrest in suburban Washington of the Air force’s chief of sexual abuse prevention had committee members demanding specifics on what the Navy and Marine Corps are doing to educate sailors and Marines, and the arrest and prosecution of those committing such crimes.

Amos said that 7 percent of the Marine Corps is female and up to 10 percent of them may have been subjects of sexual harassment or assault “from touching to saying hard things to something heinous.”

The Marines have launched education programs, as has the Navy, to raise awareness, increase reporting, encourage intervention and work with communities such as Chicago and San Diego in those areas.

“We have doubled the number of prosecutions and convictions,” Amos said.

Greenert said the Navy is “starting to see some tangible results in San Diego” in combating sexual harassment and  assault there as it did around Great Lakes. He said the Navy plans to expand those programs to Naples and Japan soon.

“We cannot be a great military force as long as we have attacks like this from the inside,”
Mabus said.

Northrop Grumman’s X-47B is loaded Monday onboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) for a planned May, 14 2013 catapult launch. US Navy Photo

Next week the Navy will launch its experimental fixed winged unmanned aerial vehicle on its first flight from an aircraft carrier, Naval Air System Command officials told USNI News on Tuesday.

Northrop Grumman’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Aircraft Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) is planned to be launched from the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) on May, 14, several sources told USNI News.

NAVAIR would not confirm an exact date for the launch.

The X-47B will do at least one launch using the ship’s steam powered catapult and preform so-called touch and goes onboard the deck of the Bush, according to NAVAIR. The X-47B was loaded onboard Bush Monday at Naval Station Norfolk, Va.

The plane however will not conduct an arrested landing onboard the aircraft carrier.

On May, 4, an X-47B made its first arrested landing at a terrestrial Navy test facility at Patuxent River, Md.

“Landing an unmanned aircraft on an aircraft carrier will be the greatest singular accomplishment for the UCAS demonstration and will serve as the culmination of over a decade of Navy unmanned carrier integration work”, said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, Navy UCAS program manager in a Monday statement from NAVAIR.

The Navy will continue to evaluate the data from the Patuxent River tests before it will determine a schedule to land the X-47B on an aircraft carrier, NAVAIR officials said.

The X-47Bs trip on Bush will not be the first time the aircraft will be underway aboard a carrier. In late 2012 the aircraft spent weeks aboard the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) learning how to integrate the X-47B onboard a carrier and how it interacts with sailors and ship systems.

UCAS-D is the first step in a Navy plan to create an unmanned fixed-wing aircraft that would operate off an aircraft carrier.

Taking off and landing on a moving carrier is universally considered the most difficult task in aviation. Creating a system that allows an unmanned vehicle to preform the tasks only the most elite pilots have done paves the way for more advanced Navy systems.

By 2020 the Navy wants to field the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (UCLASS). UCLASS plans to provide longer loiter times for surveillance missions and the ability to deliver weapons.

Former US Marine Lt. Col. Art Nalls with his restored Sea Harrier. Since military teams have canceled air shows dates due to budget cuts, Nalls has seen increased demand from air shows.

Art Nalls—air show performer and the owner/operator of what maybe the only working civilian Harrier jump jet in the country—may be one of the few people benefitting from recent military budget cuts.

Those spending reductions have bumped the Pentagon’s professional aeronautics teams—the Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds—off the air show circuit for the rest of the year, creating a demand for Nalls’ stubby-winged Sea Harrier to visit air shows: $35,000 for a 15-to-20 minute show.

“We’re turning away business,” the retired Marine aviator based in Washington, D.C. told USNI News on Monday.
“We shoot for six air shows. We got ten.”

Since the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels were formed, they have only suspended flying during the Korean War and for a brief period following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

The cancellation of Blue Angels’ schedule and keeping the team on minimum flight hours will save the Navy estimated $15–$20 million, Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Stephens with U.S. Naval Air Force Pacific Fleet told USNI News.

That $15–$20 million the Navy saves, however, could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for the air-show industry by removing the events’ most popular draw.

“It’s doing pretty serious damage to the business,” Leesburg, Va., International Council of Air Shows President John Cudahy said Monday.

Up to a third of ICAS’s 300 member air shows will cancel events because of a lack of military participation; the air show industry could lose up to 10,000 jobs; and an estimated $1.5 billion in economic impact to areas hosting air shows likely will be cut in half, Cudahy said.

Now Nalls and a handful of other elite civilian jet pilots have seen their stock increase as they fill the void left by unprecedented suspension of the military demonstration teams

“Interest in our team has increased significantly for sure,” Jerry Kerby, lead pilot for the Lakeland, Fla., Black Diamond Jet Team said in an email Monday to USNI News. “Since the Blue Angels and Thunderbird cancellations came so late, and after the air-show season had begun, many shows had to make a call immediately on whether to reach out to civilian jet team performers.”

Kerby and the Black Diamonds fly the Aero L-39 Albatros, a 1970s-era Czech jet trainer that remained in production until the late 1990s. Albatroses have surged in popularity in the United States and have been used for years on the air-show circuit.

Teams such as Kerby’s fly formations similar to those used in the traditional Air Force and Navy demonstrations and can headline an air show if the military teams are unavailable.

The Patriots Jet Team fly Aero L-39 Albatros jets during a 2009 show at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Teams like The Patriots are in demand following cancellations by Pentagon jet teams.

“If a show doesn’t get them, we fill that niche,” said Dean Wright, lead pilot of The Patriots Jet Team out of California, which also fly L-39s. “We are a great alternative.”

For $25,000, The Patriots put on a 25-minute show that’s similar to the Blue Angels demonstration. Wright, a former Thunderbird pilot, flies in a six-man team with a former Blue Angels flier and a former member of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Snow Bird demonstration team.

The Patriots have stepped up to fill the shoes of the Blue Angles at Portland’s Oregon International Air Show in July and will be the headlining fliers at San Francisco’s Fleet Week—which will not see any Navy ships and far fewer sailors than normal.

Other shows with military cancellations—in Chicago and Ft. Worth, Texas—were deemed too far for the Bay Area team to travel to perform.

“To get six jets across the country, it becomes financially unrealistic,” Wright said.

Though Nalls’ Harrier, The Patriots, and the Black Diamonds have seen increased interest, some private air-show fliers haven’t experienced any windfall from sequestration.

Dan McCue, based in St. Augustine, Fla., flies an F-4U Corsair in heritage formations with contemporary military aircraft. This year he lost his active duty wingmen to the budget cuts.

“On my side, we’re not benefitting at all,” McCue told USNI News. “We lost 70 percent of our shows.”

The suspension of the military teams comes as air shows have been doing well over the last several years. “Attendance has been trending up,” ICAS’s Cudahy said. “A poor economy is good for air shows.”

The Navy plans to resume Blue Angels air shows next year and this year submitted a budget to Congress includes funding for the jet demonstration teams. However, the final topline for military spending is far from certain, giving pause to fliers like McCue.

“One hopes that by 2014 the nut factory in Washington might their get act together,” McCue said.

Ships from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower from Carrier Strike Group in 2012. US Navy Photo

Electromagnetic rail guns, lasers and anti-torpedo torpedoes may be the key technologies necessary to ensure the continued viability of the U.S. Navy’s carrier strike groups when operating against an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment, top former service officials told USNI News.

In the past few years the Pentagon has placed an emphasis on countering the challenges of A2/AD—a concept broadly defined as denying an assaulting force access to a battle space. In the maritime context, the traditional A2/AD tools have been mines and submarines. With the development of increasingly advanced and inexpensive antiship missiles, the calculus of an assaulting force has placed an emphasis having enough weapon capacity to counter threats.

While current systems are more or less able to meet the threat faced by the carrier strike group, the fundamental problem the U.S. Navy faces is running out missiles during a battle, which effectively results in a mission kill, Bob Work, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, told USNI News.

“The biggest problem is your magazine,” said Work, who recently stepped down as under secretary of the Navy. “If the bad guy can fire enough missiles, then he can get kind of a mission kill on the carrier battle group.”

Retired Adm. Gary Roughead, former Chief of Naval Operations, agrees that managing weapon inventories during combat operations can be a serious problem.

“That’s an issue how you manage your salvo doctrine, how you use and monitor your total weapon inventory—it’s all part of your operational plan,” Roughead told USNI News.

Roughead said that while warships such as Aegis cruisers and destroyers can replenish their magazines at sea with additional Standard Missile interceptors, the carrier battle group is limited by the weapon stores that the unit’s supply vessel carries. “
Once the supply ship is out, it must go back to resupply,” Roughead said.

Submarines, however, must return to port to replenish their stocks of torpedoes and cruise missiles.

Roughead said that there are ways to mitigate for the problem. For example, if the problem is enemy submarines and long-range patrol aircraft can be flown back and rearmed faster than a warship or friendly attack submarines—the strike group commander places more emphasis on using those assets to eliminate the threat.

“How you look at weapon inventories—and you pay great attention to those weapon inventories—that’s all part of the battle plan we use,” Roughead said. “Logistics are key.”

But technology could help relieve some of the planning burden on fleet commanders and make the carrier battle group much more effective during future conflicts in contested environments.

“The real game-changer in all of this, is in my view, the electromagnetic rail gun,” Work said.

While there are many advocates of the rail gun for the strike mission, Work said that Navy has plenty of options to hit enemy targets. “What I would buy the electromagnetic rail gun for is theater ballistic-missile defense and cruise-missile defense,” he said.

Roughead agrees. “I would say that the rail gun projectile must be optimized for anti-air warfare,” he said. However, the technology needs to be further refined. “The projectiles we have today, fire control and rate of fire are not yet there for anti-air warfare.”

Using a rail gun for defense would drastically reduce the cost-per-shot for the Navy when defending against mass salvos of guided cruise or ballistic missiles compared with an interceptor missile like a Standard Missile -3.

Perhaps more important, a warship can carry vastly more rail gun-rounds than it could ever hope to have missile tubes. Roughead said that railguns are a weapon inventory game-changer because of the projectiles’ size. “It increases the depth of your magazine,” Work explained.

“You don’t go ‘Winchester’ nearly as easily,” he added, using a naval aviation term for running out of weapons or ammunition.

The use of weapons such as the railgun would invert the cost-imposition strategy. Instead of launching, for example—two interceptors costing roughly $12 million to $15 million each at an incoming $10 million missile, the Navy could obliterate the target with a rail gun slug costing a fraction of that.

“It’s going to cost them a lot more to create a salvo dense enough to get though the electromagnetic rail gun,” Work said.

Work said that the Navy is also working on directed-energy weapons—particularly lasers. “If you get into directed energy, you essentially have—not limitless, because you’re dependent on power—but you have a significantly increase in magazine capacity if you’re just shooting power,” Roughead said.

The Navy recently announced it would deploy an industrial-grade laser on board its afloat forward staging base, the USS Ponce (LPD-15), in 2014. The solid-state laser weapon system (LaWS) has proved a limited ability to splash small unmanned aerial vehicles and disable small boats.

Work said that lasers are best used for applications similar to those for which the Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) is currently used.

“It would be able to shoot down cruise missiles coming in that are relatively close,” he said. “The electromagnetic rail gun is really horizon to horizon; if it flies, it dies.”

But before rail guns or lasers can be deployed to the fleet, Roughead said, the technology needs to be further developed to reduce the physical size of the equipment to ensure it would be able fit on board combatant ships.

“It becomes a question of developing the technology to bring the [size of] power sources down so that you can rapidly fire these types of projectiles,” he said.

The third crucial technology for the Navy is an anti-torpedo torpedo, Work said. As the carrier battle group pushes into A2/AD networks in the littorals, the threat from submarines increases exponentially.

Extremely quiet diesel-electric submarines such as the Russian-built Kilo-class, in use by several countries in the vicinity of South China Sea, are of particular concern to U.S. battle groups. While the enemy submarines would likely prefer to engage U.S. naval forces from longer distances using cruise missiles, there will be instances where those vessels get into torpedo range.

“Submarines in, my mind, are the most problematic because they are the most stealthy of any weapon that you have,” Roughead said. “Antisubmarine warfare is hard stuff.”

Enemy torpedoes launched against U.S. naval forces are generally expected to be wake-homing torpedoes, which the Navy hopes to counter with anti-torpedo torpedoes, Work said.

The anti-torpedo torpedoes are smaller than the standard shipboard or helicopter-dropped 12.75-inch torpedoes, being about 9 inches in diameter.

Work said that the threat to carrier battle groups is increasing without question—that has been anticipated since the mid-1990s. But if Navy can get electromagnetic rail guns, lasers and anti-torpedo torpedoes into service within the next decade, the carrier battle group will be able to operate deeper inside a contested environment.

“They will definitely operate differently and they will most likely operate from farther range,” Work said. “This is a tough competition, no doubt about it.”

While life might be getting tougher for a carrier, the ship and its battle group are still in a better position than land bases.

“I still believe the carriers are going to be extraordinarily important because even though everybody tends to focus on the vulnerability of carriers, a land base in the range of an adversary’s weapons is even more vulnerable because you can’t move it,” Roughead said.

USS Anchorage during its May, 4 2013 commissioning ceremony. US Navy Photo

The Navy commissioned the seventh San Antonio-class amphibious war ship into the Fleet in a snowy Saturday ceremony in Alaska.

The 26,000 ton USS Anchorage (LPD-23) is the latest in the line of dock landing platform ships to enter the Fleet and one of 11 planned warships designed to ferry 720 Marines and their aircraft and landing craft around the world.

The ships, built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., replace the 1960s era Austin-class LPDs. The sole remaining Austin-class LPD, USS Ponce, has been converted into a so-called Afloat Forward Staging Base and is assigned to support special operations and mine countermeasure missions in the Middle East.

The San Antonio-class has had a troubled construction and deployment history but in testimony this year before Congress Navy and Marine leaders have said past problems have been corrected.

The future of the class may extend beyond the 11 planned ships. In March, Congress included $240 million for an 12th ship in the class, however the Navy has not made plans to purchase additional hulls.

Following the ceremony, the ship will transit back to its homeport at Naval Station San Diego, Calif. to conduct a final set of trials.

Capt. Mark Voss, Tech Sgt. Herman Mackey III and Capt. Victoria A. Pinckney were killed when their KC-135 went down in Kyrgyzstan on Friday.

The Air Force has identified three crewmembers of a KC-135 refueling tanker that crashed Friday in Kyrgyzstan, according to a Sunday Pentagon release.

The crewmembers — assigned to the 93rd Air Refueling Squadron, Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. — are:
Capt. Mark T. Voss, 27, of Colorado Springs, Colo., Capt. Victoria A. Pinckney, 27, of Palmdale, Calif., and Tech Sgt. Herman Mackey III, 30, of Bakersfield, Calif.

The three were onboard the KC-135 when it went down about 100 miles west of the U.S. Transit Center at Manas on Friday near the village of Chaldovar, according to Pentagon officials.

Witnesses told the Associated Press the plane exploded in the air Kyrgyzstan state media reported crash debris was scattered over a half-mile radius

The plane the trio was flying was assigned to the 22nd Air Refueling Wing based at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan.

On Friday, Air Force officials told USNI News it was standard procedure for different crews to man planes from other units.

Air refueling tankers have operated out of Manas since 2001 in support of the air war over Afghanistan.

The KC-135 has been in service since the late 1950s and is among the oldest U.S. Air Force airframes currently in service.

A picture from the crash site in Kyrgyzstan of a KC-135. kloop.kg Photo

Remains of the KC-135 that crashed Friday in Kyrgyzstan appear to be from an aircraft based at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan. as part of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing.

An Associated Press photograph from the scene show a vertical stabilizer from the crashed aircraft. Along the top ridge the letters “onnell,” can be read in block letters. A separate photograph shows a tail number of, “AMC 38877.”
A similar photograph of the vertical stabilizer was published on the Kyrgyz news website, kloop.kg.

A May 16, 2012 photograph from an online photo-sharing site shows a KC-135 with the same tail number and nose markings indicating the aircraft belonged to the 22nd ARW.

If accurate, the tail markings indicate the plane was 388th of its kind and was ordered in 1977.
Neither Air Force officials from McConnell nor the Pentagon would confirm the KC-135 that went down was assigned to the 22nd or McConnell to USNI News.

A photo of the tail of a KC-135 with the AMC 38877 tail number taken in 2012.

“We can’t confirm the veracity of the photos,” Ann Stefanek with the Secretary of the Air Force for Public Affairs told USNI News on Friday.

Even if the aircraft was from the 22nd ARW, it does not mean the crew flying the plane was from the same unit.
Crews assigned to KC-135s regularly operate and maintain planes not from their home units.
“Crews and aircraft aren’t necessarily from the same place,” Stefanek said.

The KC-135 Stratotanker went down about 100 miles west of the U.S. Transit Center at Manas on Friday, according to several news reports.

Witnesses told the AP the plane exploded in the air before crashing. Kyrgyzstan state media reported crash debris was scattered over a half-mile radius near the village of Chaldovar.

The accident is under investigation. The status of the crew remains unknown.

The KC-135 has been in service since the late 1950s and is among the oldest U.S. Air Force airframes currently in service.

A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refuels an F-16 Fighting Falcon over the Pacific Ocean in 2012. US Air Force Photo

An U.S. Air Force refueling tanker has crashed in the northern region of Kyrgyzstan has crashed, according to a Friday release from the Pentagon.

The KC-135 Stratotanker went down about 100 miles west of the U.S. Transit Center at Manas, a U.S. installation that has supported the U.S. air war in Afghanistan since 2001.

“Emergency response crews are on the scene, and the crew’s status is unknown,” officials from the Air Force’s 376th Air Expeditionary Wing said.

Bolot Sharshenaliev with the Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry told CNN three people were onboard the plane.

Kyrgyzstan state media reported crash debris was scattered over a half-mile radius near the village of Chaldovar.

The Associated Press reported witnesses seeing the plane explode in mid-air.

“I was working with my father in the field, and I heard an explosion. When I looked up at the sky I saw the fire. When it was falling, the plane split into three pieces,” Sherikbek Turusbekov told the AP.

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Jantoro Satybaldiev said witnesses, “saw an explosion and the plane was broken in half,” according to the CNN report.

The accident is currently under investigation.

The KC-135 has been in service since the late 1950s and is among the oldest U.S. Air Force airframes currently in service.

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Lethal autonomous robotics (LARs) are weapon systems that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further human intervention. They raise far-reaching concerns about the protection of life during war and peace. This includes the question of the extent to which they can be programmed to comply with the requirements of international humanitarian law and the standards protecting life under international human rights law. Beyond this, their deployment may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legalaccountability can be devised, and because robots should not have the power of life anddeath over human beings. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States establishnational moratoria on aspects of LARs, and calls for the establishment of a high level panelon LARs to articulate a policy for the international community on the issue.

An X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator aircraft is transported on an aircraft elevator aboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman (CVN-75). US Navy Photo

An April U.N. report calling for suspending the use deadly robotic weapon systems singled out two Navy systems, the Phalanx ship protection weapon system and the Navy’s test platform for carrier-based unmanned vehicles as part of a report recommending an international moratoria on so-called “lethal autonomous robotics.”

Report author Christof Heyns, a human rights professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, mentioned the Phalanx and the Unmanned Combat Air System Aircraft Carrier Demonstration (UCAS-D) X-47B as examples of weapon systems with at least some degree of autonomous operation.

Heyns concluded that LARs, “may be unacceptable because no adequate system of legal accountability can be devised, and because robots should not have the power of life and death over human beings.”

Other systems mentioned in the report included:
-The US Counter Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) system can automatically destroy incoming artillery, rockets and mortar rounds.
-Israel’s Harpy is a “Fire-and-Forget” autonomous weapon system designed to detect, attack and destroy radar emitters.
-The United Kingdom Taranis jet-propelled combat drone prototype can autonomously search, identify and locate enemies but can only engage with a target when authorized by mission command. It can also defend itself against enemy aircraft.
-The Samsung Techwin surveillance and security guard robots, deployed in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, detect targets through infrared sensors. They are currently operated by humans but have an “automatic mode”.

A MK 15 Phalanx close-in weapons system (CIWS) is test fired on the flight deck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). US Navy Photo

Phalanx, in operation since 1980, was developed to protect high dollar warships from the threat of anti-ship missiles following the 1970s development of the fighter-borne French Exocet missile.

The system pairs a 20 mm Gatling gun with a radar system that is designed to track an incoming missile. The Phalanx is designed to create a cloud of bullets to destroy the missile. Due to the speed of the missiles the system can target and fire with a degree of autonomy.
UCAS-D builds off of already existing autonomous technology that allows carrier aircraft to land at sea.

The demonstrator is prelude to the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike System (UCLASS), an armed unmanned aerial vechie the Navy hopes to deploy by 2018.

Though armed, UCLASS is planned to deploy weapons at the direction of a human operator.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains one of the United States’
most critical security challenges in Northeast Asia. North Korea remains a security threat because of its willingness to undertake provocative and destabilizing behavior, including attacks on the Republic of Korea (ROK), its pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, and its willingness to proliferate weapons in contravention of its international agreements and United Nations Security Council Resolutions.

North Korean aspiration for reunification – attainable in its mind in part by expelling U.S. forces from the Peninsula – and its commitment to perpetuating the Kim family regime are largely unchanged since the nation’s founding in 1948, but its strategies to achieve these goals have evolved significantly. Under Kim Jong Il, DPRK strategy had been focused on internal security; coercive diplomacy to compel acceptance of its diplomatic, economic and security interests; development of strategic military capabilities to deter external attack; and challenging the ROK and the U.S.-ROK Alliance. We anticipate these strategic goals will be consistent under North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un.